


Say It (Without Saying It)

by bespectacledwallflower



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Ballroom Dancing, Drama & Romance, F/M, Historical Hetalia, Regency Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 07:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3402782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bespectacledwallflower/pseuds/bespectacledwallflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fill for assby/arschbiene for the fryingpanfest AusHunPru exchange. I hope you enjoy this! When I found out that I had one of the main mod's fills I got verrry nervous about the whole thing, and unfortunately I could only manage to publish something almost too late and not very far outside of my comfort zone. I hope you enjoy it anyway. I may add more of what you might have been looking for in the future, since this one of your prompts really inspired me. Thank you so much for organizing the exchange and planning so much fun for us!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say It (Without Saying It)

Gilbert Beilshmidt refused to dance, even as Lieselotte drew absolutely too close for sensible company’s sake, yet he laughed and claimed that it was an old wound to his leg that left him unwilling.  
“Really? I did not happen to notice a limp, Gilbert Beilshmidt,” she noted with pouted mouth. Had she been truly pressed to him (as she admittedly wished to be), Lieselotte might have felt his heart drop to his stomach.  
“I hide it,” he said, with a cough.  
“Dance with me.”  
“I’d rather not.”  
Lieselotte’s nostrils flared. “The song is starting. Please dance with me. You have not been much of a gentleman since your arrival; best to prove it to everyone if we want relations to improve between our states.”  
Her cocked brow seemed a little too much like a cocked pistol, pointed right at Gilbert’s mouth. He tried not to pale further when she pressed her hand into his.

Lieselotte liked this new feeling, the notion of the fingers around hers being a little less experienced than her own. They stiffened too much for this dance, like they were unsure of what would happen if they released her. Being so often underestimated, Lieselotte was the one who was saved and swept from her footing. She never had the chance to do the inverse. And now, with this soldier—  
“Are you so used to being stared at by every baron and baroness, Miss Edelstein?” A scowl had tied down the corners of Gilbert Beilshmidt’s mouth.  
Lieselotte smiled. “Yes.”   
Which is to say, she hadn’t noticed stares in the least.

He carried himself with a surprising grace as they turned in and out from pair to pair; she supposed that he was only stumbling due to the attention and not the maneuvers of the ball. Lieselotte tried to keep aloof, but every time they came together again, she found herself struggling to look at anyone else. Eyes are dangerous things; if compelling enough they can ruin your concentration and your strategy. Lieselotte knew exactly what she wanted from this Beilshmidt, and it did not require this ridiculous tantalization on his part, nor this heavy thought and imagination on hers. One night to sate her own burning curiosity would be enough, and if it would set a grant of peace between their nations for a little while, that was all she required of him.   
It struck her at one point during the dance, after an exchange to a new partner, that maybe he wasn’t exactly lying about the old wound. It was already strange to her that Gilbert wasn’t among the royalty, like her and many of the other nations. Knowing him wanting to pay respects to his roots, and knowing the him that he became in war, it was less surprising, but still unusual for a being of his nature. Though it was no secret that unless the nation fell, the people of their kind could not die, many chose the life of courts and titles over the ones in grit and blood. Maybe there wasn’t anything fresh on his leg, but an image came to mind of a body landscaped with scar tissue. Gilbert’s flapping mouth had let loose a small phrase, “been in battle from the moment I left my mother’s breast,” that had struck something in Lieselotte. If he was simply exaggerating, then she had no sympathy for him.   
But if he wasn’t...how many years of battle would that have been?  
She imagined battle plans etched into his very skin. A silly thing to do, but it thrilled her quietly, all the same. 

The strings sounded softly into a decrescendo; they bowed slightly, and applause carried the dancers off the floor.

It was not until Lieselotte grew bored sick of the politics the powdery old gentlemen were talking that they managed to find each other again. She had played and played on the pianoforte to block out the noise, and still they continued their chat. The old codgers were already near deaf; she could see no reason for them to carry on this conversation by her instrument. And it really was her instrument: everyone who came to listen agreed that none of the other players had quite the command of it that she did. Though she’d chosen some very passionate pieces of the great Romantics, Lieselotte’s voice still managed to carry over it without straining.   
Yet she was still unsatisfied. A final chord, and she left in a contained huff. He found her by the wide window over the gardens left to gather weeds over the winter. 

“Who taught you to sing like that?”  
She did not turn to face him. “A long series of tutors and governesses who are largely all dead now.” He knew that. Why ask?  
Still all warm grins and bawdy laughs, Gilbert had not let himself be intimidated by her icy remarks yet. He looked to the flute of bubbly champagne still in his hand and downed it. “Are you angry because you’re sick of this party, or are you angry because I’m talking to you?”  
This incensed her enough to face him. “Yes.”  
“To what?”  
“To both.”  
“Why?”  
“Because the talk is boring and overly flattering in a place where we all hate each other, even more so than the usual boring flattery. And because I want desperately to escape and find out who you are when you’re not stuffed into this formal uniform self, or flinging yourself headlong into what should be your death. It’s like you’re trying to impress someone, but we all know you. We all how many weapons you’ve learned on, how many of your superiors have died for your sake.”  
Gilbert’s jaw set. This was beyond the usual drops of poison flicked his way by the little mistress. “You aren’t impressed, Lieselotte? I thought you might like me trying to be nice here.”  
“Frankly, it bores me,” Lieselotte spat.  
Not once had their gazes left each other.  
“I’m kissing your feet here. I’m staying sober enough to keep out of fights. I hadn’t prepared for a pretty little girl to pick one with me, I suppose.” The empty glass seemed to creak in his tightening hand.   
“You’re kissing my feet with niceties? With dances?” She laughed, abrupt and low. Her voice dropped to a purr, one with plenty of growl in it. “You know what it is I really want you to do for me.”

The silence set between them, thickening like a pudding. Lieselotte realized that she’d drawn too close again, but made no move to remedy that.   
She wanted. She knew they both wanted, even as they fought like this for years on end. And she was determined to settle this once and for all.  
“You’re really no lady at all,” Gilbert murmured to his shoes. Lieselotte had him cornered at last. Time to swallow just a bit of her pride and finish this.  
She brushed her hair behind her ear and began again, softer. “Gilbert, I want to meet you one-to-one. I’ve known you for years and never known who you are. You’re a berserker with a savoir complex one century and a court-dwelling dandy itching at his collar the next. And somehow, in all of them…” 

She trailed off, unable to quite finish. All of this time, and still neither of them can bring themselves to say it.

Lieselotte met his eyes again, daring him to drop her gaze. “Come with me. Please. You hate this party just as much as I do.”  
He cocked a grin at her, which she returned (but only just), and they slipped out into the chilly night to find a way to finally, finally say it.


End file.
